Opinion Pieces

They Need Cures Now The Augusta Chronicle By: Representative Earl L. "Buddy" Carter Maybe your grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, your friend lives with Crohn’s disease, or your colleague’s child battles Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In one way or another, we’ve all been touched by disease, and we all have a different story to tell. As a lifelong health care professional, I saw the heartbreaking devastation of disease and the toll it takes on patients and their families every day. A patient f...
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The man behind the curtain in drug price increases The Hill 9/29/2016 By: Rep. Earl L. "Buddy" Carter More so than most issues we deal with in Washington, health care is personal. We all feel it when something changes in our health care system. No one is immune, and for some, those changes mean life or death. It is very understandable, then, that fluctuation in drug prices draws so much public attention. Lifesaving medications are not a choice for a family relying on them to protect a loved one,...
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It is no wonder the American people are frustrated with Washington. I was frustrated by midafternoon the first day I was sworn in to represent the First District in Congress. Few things have been more disappointing to me than the political gamesmanship surrounding the federal government’s response to the Zika virus. It is no surprise that Zika is now being locally transmitted in the United States. What is shocking to me is that some in Congress would continue partisan bickering rather than worki...
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This spring, I joined over 240 of my colleagues in sending a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expressing our deep concerns with a sweeping, nationwide experiment that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) has proposed. After speaking with patients and physicians in my district, there is no uncertainty that the CMMI experiment with Part B drug payment is the first step to government price controls and it will have negative consequences for millions o...
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Before my election to Congress, I served more than thirty years as a community pharmacist. In that time, I witnessed and participated in some of the greatest advancements in the history of medicine. I have seen diseases that once required hospitalization become illnesses treated from home with medication. I have seen an antibiotic regimen that once required four tablets each day for ten days replaced with six tablets over five days. I have seen a deadly disease like Hepatitis C cured by medicati...
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When I opened my first pharmacy some twenty-eight years ago, all I asked for was a level playing field and a fair shot at success. As a “little guy,” I could not afford lawyers or accountants to help me through those critical starting years. For several years, I could not even afford to pay myself! In the years since I have achieved the American Dream – starting from nothing, building a successful business and a loving family, and now representing where I was born and bred in the United States C...
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In the more than thirty years I have practiced pharmacy, I have witnessed a tremendous evolution in the profession. The clinical foundation and training of a pharmacist graduating today is leaps and bounds above where I started my practice. However, one thing has not changed: a pharmacists’ role in patient care goes well beyond dispensing medications. Today, as before, many pharmacists provide patient-centered services like medication coordination, medication management, patient education, and m...
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President Obama famously pledged on the 2008 campaign trail to have the "most transparent administration in history." Seven years in, that commitment has led to little more than flowery language on whitehouse.gov. The Obama administration has an abysmal record on openness to the press and the American people. Nowhere is it worse than the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS currently boasts the largest backlog of any federal agency and, since the Obama administration took over, there has b...
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Having owned and operated community pharmacies for nearly thirty years, I take pride in having provided my employees with the tools they needed to achieve financial independence. One of the most important tools in this effort were retirement investment plans so they could save to retire comfortably. Unfortunately the Obama administration is now taking steps threatening the ability for small businesses to provide their employees with this vital resource. If the administration gets its way, many m...
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Though it sits just 90 miles to our southernmost point, traveling to Cuba is like traveling back in time. On a recent mission there. I was struck immediately by what we would consider antique cars and crumbling buildings that date back to the 1950’s. This is an important time to visit Cuba as the Obama administration continues efforts to normalize relations with the Castro regime. I was joined by four other members of Congress there to answer the same questions as me: What’s changed? The first s...
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